SINGAPORE - The Housing Board is turning to technology to catch motorists who try to evade parking charges by tailgating.

It will be using sensors and cameras to record motorists who bypass carpark gantries without paying carpark charges. The Tailgating Detection System (TDS) will be implemented in its carparks in the second half of next year to automate the process of catching such errant motorists.

Currently, the detection of carpark charges evasion is done manually - employees scan closed-circuit television footage and check a vehicle's payment record against the footage.

With the new system, the HDB said that there will be a network of sensors located at the exits of the Electronic Parking System carparks to measure the distance between vehicles as they approach carpark gantries.

Once tailgating is detected, the system instantly records the video footage, as well as the vehicle's details, and date and time of the incident - automating the process.

The new system can also detect motorcycles which bypass carpark gantries without paying parking charges.

In a statement on Wednesday (Dec 27), the HDB said: "Through a network of advanced sensors and cameras located at the exits of carparks installed with the Electronic Parking System (EPS), the TDS uses video analytics to identify tailgating vehicles in real time."

The technology was piloted by the agency in May for six months. The pilot was conducted at two carparks, one surface and one multi-storey.

During this period, 130 vehicles were caught tailgating or bypassing the gantries.

HDB said that as of Nov 15, it has issued more than 6,000 parking offence notices to motorists who intentionally evaded payment of parking charges by tailgating or bypassing EPS gantries.

The penalties are $25 for motorcycles, $50 for cars, and $80 for heavy vehicles.

The HDB said: "Compared (with) the manual process, which can take several hours, the process of identifying such errant motorists using the TDS is much more effective and efficient."